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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

New Restrictions for Migrants Coming to U.S.; Ukraine's Corruption Problem; National Guard Shooting Suspect To Face Murder Charge; Trump Admin. Reviewing Asylum Cases Approved Under Biden; New Resignation Rattles Ukraine Amid Corruption Scandal; Sources - U.S. Carried Out Second Strike On Alleged Drug Boat, Killing Survivors; Hong Kong Fire Investigation; Airbus Warns Thousands of Passenger Planes Need Repair; Erika Fabian on Surviving Hitler And Stalin. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired November 29, 2025 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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LAURA COATES, AMERICAN LEGAL ANALYST AND ATTORNEY: -- Laura would think that about Carl Winslow. Thank you very much, Harry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

COATES: All right. Thank you all so much for watching. I'll see you back here on Monday. Some call it Cyber Monday. Have a great weekend.

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN HOST: I'm Elex Michaelson. Live in Los Angeles. "The Story Is" starts right now. "The Story Is," mourning the National Guard vigils tonight for the victims, as President Trump pushes new restrictions on asylum cases. With us, the Head of Afghan vets helped to relocate nearly 200,000 Afghans to America. "The Story Is," corruption probe in Ukraine. President Zelenskyy's Chief of Staff stepped down. Talk about how this impacts the peace deal now on the table. "The Story Is," the Pope's first trip abroad happening soon. Pope Leo, the XIV to visit a Muslim place of worship at Istanbul's Blue Mosque in Turkey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, "The Story Is" with Elex Michaelson.

MICHAELSON: And welcome to "The Story Is," holiday weekends are often light on news, but not this one. President Trump is ramping up his anti-immigration efforts after an Afghan national was identified as the suspect in the shooting of two national guardsmen near the White House. That suspect was granted asylum earlier this year by the Trump administration, but now the U.S. is halting all asylum decisions. Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says the pause will stay in place until, "We can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible." Meanwhile, the State Department announced it has stopped issuing visas for travelers with Afghan passports.

All of this after President Trump said he would, "Permanently pause migration from all third world countries." Meanwhile, family and friends are honoring Sarah Beckstrom, the West Virginia National Guard member who was died after that shooting, they held a vigil a short time ago in Webster Springs, West Virginia, near her old high school. Andrew Wolfe, the other Guard member who was shot Wednesday is still fighting for his life. Beckstrom's former boyfriend tells CNN, she was a loving, caring person.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM CARR, SARAH BECKSTORM'S FORMER BOYFRIEND: She was ecstatic, outgoing, little more of a homebody, though. She didn't really like messing with people, so she was happy just being with family. She loved going hunting. Oh my gosh. Last hunting season, she was ecstatic to go out, and when she got her first buck, she was beyond excited. I was getting letters about it and pictures, and she couldn't explain how happy she was. She loved fishing. It was huge passion, especially from her grandpa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Jeanine Pirro, the Prosecutor leading the shooting investigation says the suspect will face a murder charge. Law enforcement officials tell CNN authorities have now interviewed those close to the suspect, including his spouse and five children. They said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which they said stemmed from the fighting he did in Afghanistan while working with the CIA.

CNN's Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller says, because of that work that suspect was well vetted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: In this case, you have an individual who had worked for the U.S. in the CIA supported special military team and the Afghan Military Special Forces. This was a team operating in Kandahar where Rahmanullah Lakanwal had been one of the soldiers that was used to target members, according to my sources of the Taliban of al Qaeda in Kandahar, the Haqqani Network, a number of the places there. So we had an awful lot of information about him. Vetting was not going to be the problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Shawn VanDiver is the Founder and President of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit that has helped to relocate and resettle nearly 200,000 Afghan vets. Sean, thanks for joining us and thanks for your service to our country.

SHAWN VANDIVER, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, #AFGHANEVAC: Thank you so much, Alex for having me on today.

MICHAELSON: So your reaction to the late breaking news Secretary Rubio essentially trying to end the Afghan special immigration visa program.

VANDIVER: Listen, this is what we've seen the Trump administration do in the first Trump administration, and what they're trying to do with this administration. On day one, they shut down an ongoing relocation. My group, Afghan Evac and our coalition of more than 250 organizations at any given time, worked with the Biden administration to build the single safest most secure legal immigration pathway in our country's history. We called it enduring welcome, and it was getting 5,000 Afghans a month here safely and securely through the SIV and the refugee pathways. And on day one, President Trump shut all of that down.

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And every month since there's been a new road block in their way, they've trapped American family members, the families of American service members in Doha and in Afghanistan and Pakistan and around the world. So this is unsurprising, but terrifying and awful, and we hope that Congress will exert their power and the courts will exert their power, because both have told the Trump administration before that you can't stop the SIV program. We hope that will hold.

MICHAELSON: What do you think went wrong here?

VANDIVER: Look, if you want my honest opinion, I think that President Trump defunded the domestic programs that are supposed to keep us safe, programs that are supposed to detect lone wolves and people that are having a hard time mentally. We know that this guy got vetted by both the Trump and the Biden administrations. We know he applied for SIV and asylum under the Biden administration and was approved for both. Then we know that he would have been vetted before he left Afghanistan, before he got here, when he got here, the whole time he was here, and at each point in that application process. So I don't know that a vetting thing broke. I think that the issue is, our domestic security apparatus has been deconstructed, both by DOGE and then by this asinine effort to pull political stunts at Home Depot and immigration courts and by pulling teachers out of classroom.

MICHAELSON: I mean, that's a big accusation that you're making against him. I mean, is it also possible, as they're saying, that this individual just had post-traumatic stress from a stressful situation with the CIA in Afghanistan and had nothing to do with President?

VANDIVER: Oh, absolutely, but people have post-traumatic stress all the time. And what we see routinely is that these things get thwarted because of that domestic security apparatus, the post-9/11 domestic security apparatus that was funded by the federal government through state and local grants. 69 percent to 79 percent of that funding to blue states has been totally cut, and the President has been playing political games. So we don't know, and the Trump administration isn't being very forthcoming. We had to break the news about his asylum being approved by him and the chief of mission being approved. We just think that we should be doing everything that we can do to protect our national security, and playing games with that is not acceptable.

MICHAELSON: You work with leaders in both parties in Congress often. Many of them have praised what you do. We want to put up on the screen a comment to CNN today from John Curtis, who is a Republican senator from Utah, this is what he had to say about this situation. It is a false narrative that you can't have rule of law and compassion, and I think that's what we should be striving for. Can you talk about what the value is of having these Afghans here, about why this program is so important, and some of the work that they did that you think makes it so necessary to have them here?

VANDIVER: I absolutely can. These folks stood by our troop. Look, I didn't serve in Afghanistan, but this fight is my fight, because how we close out our longest war is the story of America, right? So look, these folks stood by our sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines in Afghanistan, in Iraq. And look they saved our lives, they protected Americans, they took life in our name. In the case of these zero units, they went out and executed highly classified Special Forces missions and Intelligence Community missions. And we made a promise to them.

We said, if you stand with us, we'll stand with you. And that's what Afghan Evac's all about. That's why we work with Mr. Curtis and Representatives and Senators from both sides of the aisle. We know that this group of people has bipartisan support, and we hope that holds. We've seen extraordinary things, extraordinary results from when Republicans and Democrats come together to support these folks, including in the last Congress, when we got 12,000 additional SIVs approved, thanks to Speaker Mike Johnson and the rest of the congressional leadership.

MICHAELSON: And the overwhelming, overwhelming, overwhelming majority of these people have not been problematic in any way, and have been good citizens, and that's an important thing to point out as well.

Shawn, thank you very much. Appreciate you joining us from San Diego live tonight.

VANDIVER: Thank you so much, Alex. See you soon.

MICHAELSON: Ukraine is looking for a new top negotiator just days ahead of key peace talks with the U.S. that is after Andriy Yermak, President Zelenskyy's Chief of Staff stepped down on Friday. He did that hours after anti-corruption investigators raided his home. Yermak led Kyiv's negotiating team at some of the recent peace talks. He said he cooperated with the investigators, who did not say why his home was raided, but it happened. As a major corruption scandal is rattling Ukraine's government. Mr. Zelenskyy betrayed the resignation as an opportunity to have a clean slate.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I want no one to have any questions about Ukraine today. Therefore, today we have the following internal decisions. First, there will be a reboot of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Head of the Office, Andriy Yermak has written a letter of resignation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELSON: Simon Shuster is a Staff Writer for The Atlantic. He's author of The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Simon, welcome to "The story Is" for the first time. Appreciate it.

SIMON SHUSTER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: You've written a lot about this recently in the Atlantic. One of your articles is about Zelenskyy's blind spot, and you're talking about this latest corruption probe that have DOGE Ukraine's leadership during the war. The latest one could be his undoing.

SHUSTER: It could really unravel the administration, the system that he has built, the team that he has put together to try to lead Ukraine through this war, and that is the risk that he faces now. But generally, his attitude has been similar. I think he's taken this one more seriously than previous cases, but when I've talked to him about corruption in the past, he tends to find corruption investigations as necessary, but generally unfair. He tends to see them as a sign of kind of nefarious interests working against him, and especially at a time of war, he argues against the kinds of purges that he is encouraged to undertake in response to corruption investigations.

He says, we need to keep the team united, and that's difficult when you have anti-corruption investigators breathing down your neck.

MICHAELSON: Does this corruption investigation take away some of his cards? President Trump has said to him, you don't have the cards when it comes to leverage. Does it hurt him in terms of leverage with President Trump and President Putin?

SHUSTER: I think so. I think there's actually a lot of reason to believe that this peace plan that was handed last week to Ukraine that was very much weighted in Russia's favor, this 28-point peace plan. It was done at that moment exactly because Zelenskyy was weakened by the corruption investigation. The reporting of my colleagues in D.C. indicates that the U.S. administration thought it was the right time to pressure Zelenskyy to accept this deal, because the corruption investigation made it more difficult for Zelenskyy to push back. So yes, this weakens him also at the negotiating table.

MICHAELSON: So you had an exclusive interview recently with Ukraine's Chief Negotiator at that negotiating table. Here's the headline, Ukraine says it won't give up land to Russia. What's his main point? Because he's basically laying out a red line here, right?

SHUSTER: That's right, it was interesting. Yeah, he called me yesterday in the morning to talk about this, and this was at a critical moment in the negotiations. The Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators had managed to adjust, rework the kind of pro-Russian version, the initial version of the peace plan, and make it much more acceptable to the Ukrainians. But in -- when he called me the Chief Negotiator, Andriy Yermak drew a very clear red line right through the most contentious point on the table in these negotiations that is Ukrainian territory.

He said, Ukraine will never trade land for peace as long as Zelenskyy is President. So that really limits going into the next phase of this negotiation process, the peace process. It limits the room for maneuver, the space that negotiators have to come to a deal, because it takes off the table, at least from the Ukrainian perspective, the possibility that they will exchange any territory in exchange for peace.

MICHAELSON: So President Trump obviously promised during the campaign, he would solve this thing within 24 hours. That hasn't happened. He's been all over the place. In The Atlantic, you wrote the most consistent thing about Trump's 10 month search for an end of the war in Ukraine has been his inconsistency. Where does he go on this? I mean and based off of everything you know and everybody you've talked to and everything you've reported for years, how do you think this thing ends?

SHUSTER: I think it will ultimately be decided on the battlefield. That is where Russia is really pushing its advantage at enormous cost in casualties, but it is trying to advance on the battlefield through the use of force. There's no indication that Vladimir Putin sees any reason to stop doing that. The original plan for ending this war that the European diplomats and the Ukrainians were trying to pursue was sanctions pressure and other means of pressure to make Putin stop.

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Trump seems to be taking now a different approach. He's taking the approach of let's talk to the Russians. Let's see what they might accept. But really, I don't expect Putin to accept the deal that the Ukrainians and the Americans have hashed out in the last few days, because it doesn't meet the demands that Putin is making, and he thinks that he can gain territory and win the war fundamentally on the battlefield.

MICHAELSON: So based off of what you're saying, it doesn't sound like we're close to a deal.

SHUSTER: I'm afraid not. No.

MICHAELSON: Simon Shuster doing tremendous reporting in The Atlantic on this issue. Thanks so much for joining us and sharing your insights.

SHUSTER: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: Sources tell CNN, the U.S. military carried out a second strike on an alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean after it was learned that the first one didn't kill everybody on board. When the military first struck the boat on September 2nd, it initially disabled it, but sources say officials noticed survivors, so they carried out the next strike to kill everybody on board.

Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, had ordered the military prior to the operation to ensure the strike killed everybody on board. But it's not clear if he knew that there were survivors prior to the second strike, one of the sources said. Now, people briefed on this say it could violate the laws of armed conflict, which prohibit the execution of enemy combatants who are injured or surrendered. This comes as military activity at a Puerto Rico naval base has intensified in recent days. The Trump administration has been stepping up deployments to the Caribbean amid the drug trafficking operations and escalating tensions with Venezuela.

Stefano Pozzebon joins me now from Caracas, Venezuela. Thanks so much for being with us. What are folks on the ground saying to you? Is there real concern that there actually could be military conflict here or do they feel like this is a lot of hot air amongst world leaders who like to bloviate?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, I think that there is the -- even we can say something even further than concern people are worried here in Venezuela, especially when you could see that for weeks and months, we said that these sort of rhetorical warfare so far had not provided any real consequence here in Caracas.

What happened in the last week instead is that several airlines have canceled their flights to and from Venezuela to and from Caracas International Airport, after the United States issued a NOTAM, which is in order to airlines that it might be dangerous to fly over Venezuelan airspace. And of course, that means that increases the sense of isolation from this country, and it also increases the sense that something might develop very, very soon.

We have not seen, Elex, the type of nervous shopping. For example, you don't see people preparing to bulk up on groceries, for example, if they believe that there is a confrontation, perhaps even a war coming down in the not too distant future. However, let's remind our audience that this is a country that is dealing with dramatic economic conditions day in and day out.

What I'm hearing cracker, so prices grow up to 30 percent or 40 percent every single month, the local currency, the Bolivar, has depreciated almost 100 percent since the beginning of this offensive down from the White House. So you can see that even though there is real concern, millions of Venezuela simply don't have the need in the means to come up with alternative plans of what they would do in case of a military confrontation or even war and conflict with the U.S.

And so that's why, I think it paints a picture of the situation in Venezuela. People show concern. There is, of course, a lot of apprehension, a lot of expectation that something might happen before Christmas, but at the same time, not really the capacity to come up with a solution in each other's small little space, but also as a nation as a whole, Elex.

MICHAELSON: Stefano Pozzebon joining us from Caracas. Thank you so much for your reporting. Really appreciate it.

It has been a big day for Black Friday shopping across the U.S. How big Adobe Analytics says consumers spent $8.6 billion online by 6:30 p.m. Eastern, that is up nearly 9.5 percent from last year. Final sales could reach nearly $12 billion which would be a new online Black Friday record. Adobe attributes the growth to steeper discounts than initially forecast, strong online sales are expected to continue throughout the weekend, and Adobe predicts consumers will spend $5.5 billion on Saturday, nearly $6 billion on Sunday.

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About 58 percent of those sales, by the way, will be on a mobile device, not on a desktop.

Up next, we take you to Hong Kong, where there are new arrests in that massive and devastating apartment fire. Stay with us.

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In the U.S. this is one of the busiest travel weekends of the entire year. Sunday, the busiest travel day of all, and that happening while thousands of air bus passenger planes have been essentially grounded for an urgent software update. Airbus says pilots could lose control of the A320 series of planes during some intense solar storms.

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This warning comes after an October JetBlue flight suddenly plunged in altitude, sending 15 people to hospital.

Now, most of these planes can be repaired in about two hours. So we're not talking about weeks here. American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue have already started the fix, but they could cause some disruptions for holiday travelers over the weekend. Meanwhile, Japan's biggest airline ANA Holdings, says it had to cancel 65 flights on Saturday because of this very issue.

Now to Hong Kong, the flames are extinguished in that deadly residential fire that claimed the lives of at least 128 people. The focus now turns to the search for the missing and answers about causes of the tragedy. Here's a look at what it looks like now. CNNs Hanako Montgomery reports from Hong Kong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hong Kong's worst fire disaster in decades left seven high rise residential towers standing only as burnt out shells. Well over 100 people are dead.

MONTGOMERY (On Camera): The Hong Kong authorities said that by Friday morning local time, the fire was completely extinguished at the housing complex behind me, but they say that around 200 people still remain missing, and they fear the death toll could go up in the coming hours, if not days.

MONTGOMERY: Over 48 hours after the disaster, some new detail as to how the fire at the Wang Fuk Court complex spread so quickly and so severely, with an investigation set to take up to a month. Early questions have focused on construction cladding that had covered the buildings for up to a year.

CHRIS TANG, HONG KONG SECURITY CHIEF (Interpreted): It ignited the mesh net and quickly spread to the polystyrene boards around the windows, resulting in the fire in other floors and buildings. MONTGOMERY: Authorities have also said they are investigating whether the fire alarms were functioning properly on the day of the blaze. Several residents who spoke to CNN said that the alarms in their buildings never rang, and some only discovered there was a fire when they looked outside.

Authorities believe the blaze began close to ground level on building six, around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. Images have surfaced on social media of the early embers of what would become a raging inferno, creeping up the cladding then spreading to the other buildings.

MONTGOMERY (On Camera): Have you seen a disaster like this in your careers?

WALLACE, AUXILIARY MEDICAL SERVICE VOLUNTEER: I have served in the auxiliary medical service for about 10 years. I joined the team at 16, and now I'm 26. I have never seen such a shocking scene appear in front of me.

MONTGOMERY (On Camera): Survivors have described their panic, many unsure of how to escape the burning buildings.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Interpreted): This is my home. Look over there, the 10th floor. That's where my home was. By the hills, that's where it used to be. I really want to go back, but my home is probably gone now. They won't let us go back, so when I look in that direction, my heart feels so heavy.

MONTGOMERY (On Camera): This domestic worker watched for her employer's high rise apartment as the fire took hold.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Interpreted): At first, so panic. I was so scary because the fire burned so big. At first, yeah, so scared and panic.

MONTGOMERY (On Camera): And now how are you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Interpreted): Now, when I think about it, I'm grateful because I'm still alive.

MONTGOMERY: Hong Kongers will band together to help the victims of a disaster which is not yet over. Hanako Montgomery, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELSON: Coming up. Pope Leo celebrates the anniversary of a core Christian doctrine on the third day of his trip to Turkey. We'll take you there when we come back.

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MICHAELSON: Welcome back "The Story Is," I'm Elex Michaelson. Let's take a look at today's top stories. A powerful winter storm is sweeping the U.S., threatening to snarl post-Thanksgiving travel. The Rockies, Great Plains, Midwestern regions will likely see rain, snow and icing conditions over the weekend. As the storm moves east, it's opening the door for a rush of arctic air that could drop temperatures for millions of people.

Sources tell CNN that the U.S. military carried out a second strike on an alleged drug boat back in September, according to those sources, when the military learned there were survivors on the boat from the first strike, they carried out another one to kill everybody. Some are concerned this could violate the laws of armed conflict for executing a combatant who is injured or who has surrendered.

U.S. is pausing all asylum decisions after an Afghan national was identified as the suspect in the D.C. National Guard shooting. He was granted asylum earlier this year by the Trump administration. The Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says the pause will stay in place until, "We can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the mask maximum degree possible."

Joining with me now to talk about that and more is Political Consultant, Elizabeth Ashford. She's a partner at the Ten Kredit Group. She's a veteran staffer in California government. Her past bosses include Kamala Harris, Jerry Brown, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Elizabeth, welcome to "The Story Is" for the first time.

ELIZABETH ASHFORD, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Thank you so much, Alex, it's so nice to be here.

MICHAELSON: Great to have you here. So President Trump's reaction to this one person --

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ASHFORD: Right.

MICHAELSON: -- is to say that everybody is now potentially a problem. What do you make of that?

ASHFORD: I mean, this is a panicked man locked in a bathroom on Thanksgiving Eve, right? I mean, he has a huge political problem on his hands, and he's freaking out. I mean, to just put it bluntly, his -- he has somebody who has passed away, it was 20-year-old young lady who has now passed away because of a policy on his watch. That's a crisis. He granted that person asylum. That's a crisis. But beyond that, there are a lot of cracks showing in the Trump administration right now, and I just think it's a pile on.

MICHAELSON: Well, and it's interesting, because usually Black Friday is a quiet time in politics. Congress is out of session. People are spending time with their families, and lot of times, it's the -- one time politicians don't have to say anything other than like happy Thanksgiving, be well.

ASHFORD: Right. MICHAELSON: But he put out, also on true social a post saying that everything that President Biden did via autopen should now be terminated, which he says is approximately 92 percent of things which it's not clear what the constitutionality or if something like that is even possible to do.

ASHFORD: Right. Again, I mean, this is not somebody who has ever behaved in a particularly rational way. But right now, I think you see the pressure of this shooting, that's a big issue, the fact that the tariffs aren't working, the fact that inflation isn't coming down. I mean, immigration enforcement is not popular in the way it's being done. It's a mess. The pressure is on. And so you're starting to see, I think, somebody unravel a little bit in public.

MICHAELSON: And another post he put on Truth Social shows a picture of him with a Trump 2028 sign, essentially saying, I'm going to run for President again, which we know the Constitution prohibits somebody for running for President for a third term. What do you think is really going on there?

ASHFORD: I think he's feeling very insecure about JD Vance, to be honest with you. There's just been a lot of chatter about, is Vance next up? You have Erika Kirk talking about Vance. You have the spectator asking, is Vance inevitable? And for somebody like Trump, that is just intolerable situation. He wants to be the center of the story. So I think that's more of a message to his people, his base, rather than to dems. It's not a threat to dems. Nobody surprised on the Democratic side that he wants to stay in forever.

MICHAELSON: Well, and in some ways, for somebody like him, but for all politicians, two words are really bad, lame duck --

ASHFORD: That's right.

MICHAELSON: -- because that means you start to lose your power. In some ways, people thought that's the reason why Joe Biden kept going as long as he did, then you're not a lame duck. And in some ways, Donald Trump, this Trump 2028 thing makes people think maybe he will still be President. Maybe he's not a lame duck.

ASHFORD: I mean, I'm surprised he didn't have something that said Trump 2032 yes, daddy, please. I mean, he just -- I don't think we're dealing with somebody who is really in the most measured frame of mind to govern.

MICHAELSON: Because there, but the Republican counter to that would be, look, he's just trolling everybody. He's getting attention out there, even putting out the Trump the autopen thing as a way to get attention, to make liberals explode on social media, on places like CNN and just, and then he's actually driving. And his people like a lot of what he's doing on immigration and other issues.

ASHFORD: Well, I mean, people like what he's doing, but again, it's just really for the base. I mean, a lot of the voters that he moved to vote for him in the last election are Latino voters. They're men, and they are now sitting with the effects of bringing him in. He's supposed to be the economy guy. He was going to like, make things less expensive, and that has not happened.

MICHAELSON: You are a veteran of California politics. Your father and you worked on every gov. -- worked for every Governor from Ronald Reagan to Jerry Brown II that's decades --

ASHFORD: Yes.

MICHAELSON: -- of being in that space, you're not working for any governor campaign right now. There is a race for California Governor under way. What do you make of the field?

ASHFORD: I mean, it's kind of a game of musical chairs right now, and it's a bit of a snooze fest. I mean, I don't think anybody is really breaking through. The reason for that, I don't think is really name recognition. Most of these folks are known knowns for Californians. What's I think happening is that there aren't any really big ideas that are coming out. I mean, I think Eric Swalwell talked about voting by phone, right?

MICHAELSON: On this show, yeah.

ASHFORD: On this show, right? And so I don't know that most Californians are like calling out for voting by phone. People are it's affordability, affordability and affordability. And then as a distant fourth, I really think it's -- and we have to fight Trump. So -- and I -- so we don't really have any real fresh ideas coming out of this pool of candidates.

MICHAELSON: So nobody's impressing you so far. Do you think somebody, you think that there's a vacuum for somebody else to get in?

ASHFORD: I do. Yeah, absolutely.

[12:40:00]

I think that the -- it's really a ripe environment for somebody, a dark horse, somebody out of left field to come in and try to make a name for themselves. Gubernatorial elections used to be boring in California that stopped when Arnold ran for Governor. And now, I mean, we're sort of back to the future, which is we have not a terribly exciting group of people running, accomplished people, people have actually shown they can govern, but not breaking through with voters.

MICHAELSON: Yeah, the last three California Governors Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger all big stars --

ASHFORD: Yes.

MICHAELSON: -- on the national stage, on the international stage.

ASHFORD: Right.

MICHAELSON: And we are not necessarily seeing that at least so far. We'll see. Got a lot of time to go.

ASHFORD: Not yet. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks Elex. MICHAELSON: Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

ASHFORD: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: Pope Leo the XIV is condemning the misuse of religion to in his words, justify war, violence and fanaticism, and he's urging Catholics to mobilize their faith and unify others. The pontiff is on day three of his trip to the Middle East. This is a live picture right now from Istanbul, Turkey. We expect in the next 20 minutes or so, the pontiff to visit a Muslim place of worship at Istanbul's Blue Mosque. This is in Turkey. We will bring you that visit in the next hour. The Pope commemorating a significant church anniversary on Friday. CNNs, Christopher Lamb was there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN, VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Hopefully on Friday, coming here to Iznik, a place which is associated with one of the most important events in early Christianity. It was in Iznik that the Council of Nicaea took place 1,700 years ago. Now, the Council of Nicaea resolved a major theological controversy. It defined core Christian doctrine and also produced the first version of what would become the Nicene Creed, a profession of faith still said by Christians of different denominations.

Leo taking part in this anniversary celebrations with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church wanting to put into action his message of unity. Of course, Catholics and Orthodox have longstanding divisions, but today was all about unity. Pope Leo marking this incredibly important event in the life of the Christian church on his second day of his first trip abroad to Turkey and Lebanon.

Earlier in the day, Leo had been to the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul to meet with the local Catholic community in Turkey. On the way in, he met with some priests from the Diocese of Dallas in the U.S. Leo receiving a warm welcome during this trip in Turkey. Christopher Lamb, CNN, Iznik.

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MICHAELSON: Thank you, Christopher, and again, we'll take you live to that visit in our next hour. But now to this story three Austrian nuns who escaped their nursing home and broke back into their former convent may be allayed allowed to stay there. There are conditions, though. Church officials say the women, all in their 80s, would have to shut down the Instagram account that made them famous and return to a more secluded monastic lifestyle. They'd also have to agree to eventually go back to the nursing home when the convent can no longer care for them. In the meantime, the women would receive 24-hour medical care and spiritual guidance. The nuns have not yet accepted the church's conditional offer.

Still ahead, a new book from a remarkable woman who survived the Holocaust and endured postwar communist impression. There are a lot we can all learn from Erika Fabian. She joins me live on set next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:45:00]

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MICHAELSON: On this Thanksgiving weekend in America, many of us are reflecting on what we're grateful for, including life itself, which is especially true for those who survived the Holocaust. Erika Fabian not only endured that, but then went on to live under oppression of postwar communism, and she's written about all of it in Liars' Paradise: Outwitting Nazis and Communists a True Tale of Survival. Erica joins me live in studio. Erica, congrats on the new book, your 26th book --

ERIKA FABIAN, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: -- which is amazing. It's great to talk with you. I'm so inspired by you and your story, and so happy to have you here. The book is broken up into three different portions. Surviving Hitler, surviving Stalin and then surviving revolution. Let's start with the surviving Hitler, and at four-years-old, you learned how to lie.

FABIAN: Well, if I hadn't learned how to lie, I'd not be sitting here now talking to you. It was very simple. I was told that if anybody asked me what my religion was. I was Christian, because if I said I was born Jewish, I'd get killed, and my mother would get killed, and my sister would get killed. So it was a life preserving instinct that taught me to say, no, I'm Christian.

MICHAELSON: And your mother had to travel to get you fake birth certificates, and in that process, you almost were killed by Nazi officers.

[12:50:00]

FABIAN: In the process, while she was away, getting this by the way, they were real birth certificates offered to us by a housekeeper who could no longer work for us because she was Christian and you couldn't work for Jews, when you were a Christian. She put me and my sister into a Red Cross Hospital, and she was away only three days, but the third day before she came back, that dawn, Nazi officers, Hungarian Nazi officers came to the hospital because they knew that a lot of Jewish children were there, and they round us up and marched us to a collection center ready to be deported. And my mother had the ingenuity to engage a supposedly a doctor who was actually an actor working as a doctor in the hospital, who dressed up as a Nazi brought our new birth certificates to this collection center and took us out of there and saved our lives.

MICHAELSON: And everybody was lying in this whole process in order to get through it. So you're able to survive the Holocaust, survive Hitler, and then you had and have to now deal with Stalin and communism. And you say there are now echoes of some of that communism. You see now. FABIAN: Well, what actually terrifies me, in a way, is that in today's government, if somebody opens their mouth and says something against the President, they get persecuted. That is so un American, I can't even tell you, because one of the things about living in America, to me is the freedom to speak out, to speak your mind. I've traveled all over the world. So I'm perfectly aware that most countries you can't do that. I lived in Mexico. I lived in Peru. You can't open your mouth and say something bad and not get somehow persecuted, arrested, whatever. But in America, it's unheard of. I'm shocked.

MICHAELSON: Yeah, although President Trump has not persecuted people in the way that Stalin did. Or no --

FABIAN: No, thank God. No, but some people get jailed.

MICHAELSON: Yeah? Or they're being prosecuted.

FABIAN: Yes.

MICHAELSON: So what would you say, because part of what you did also was you went, You survived the revolution, you came to America, and now you're speaking out. We were together at the Holocaust Museum earlier this year as you spoke to people there about your story, sharing this idea of never forget. Why is that so important? Why is it so important for you to speak out, to keep sharing this story?

FABIAN: Because to me, it's very important not to allow it to happen again. I feel that if somebody comes in and says, you can't say that, and you can't say that, the next step is you get arrested or in some way punished by saying the wrong thing, and by the time you look around, your freedom is gone. And I think you know one of the most important things in my life, because I grew up under communism, terrified of what I could not say, or could or I had said.

I would like to live in America with the freedom of being able to say whatever and not worry about what I said. And I see it happening. I see antisemitism rising. Jews get blamed a lot for everything, and so I have this double whammy of wanting to be able to say whatever, because I'm a writer, OK? And as a writer, I want to write the truth.

MICHAELSON: And that requires, in your view, other people stepping up to defend.

FABIAN: Absolutely. There was this German who wrote, and I can't quote it exactly, you didn't speak up when this happened. You didn't speak up when that happened. When they came for me, there was nobody to speak up. Well, this is my fear, OK. If we keep quiet and we tolerate a certain amount of oppression or creating fear in people for saying things. Guess where that's going? Some form of oppression, some form of taking over the government. And that to me is a nightmare.

MICHAELSON: Well, we can read about your story in Liars' Paradise, which is available as an e-book right now on Amazon and other places, it will be a hard cover in the next few weeks as well. Congratulations on the book.

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FABIAN: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: Thank you for speaking out.

FABIAN: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: Really appreciate and it's such a pleasure to know you.

FABIAN: Stay free.

MICHAELSON: Thank you stay free. We'll be back more news right after this.

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